Proposed BARMM labor code gets cross-section support

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Stakeholders have endorsed a proposed regional labor code pending in the Bangsamoro parliament, partly meant to boost the socio-economic goals of the Mindanao peace process.

Cross-section support for the measure, proposed by Bangsamoro parliament member Romeo Sema, started mounting this week after a regional labor summit here five days before where the proposed law was discussed.

Among the endorsers of the proposed Bangsamoro Labor and Employment Code, or BLEC, are Trade Union Congress of the Philippines Party-list Rep. Raymond Democrito Mendoza, Chinese business groups and elected officials in five provinces in the autonomous region --- Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

Mendoza said Saturday they can help disseminate the BLEC to the Muslim, Christian and non-Moro indigenous communities in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and observe its enforcement once approved by the 80-member BARMM parliament.

Big Chinese business blocs in BARMM had also expressed favor for the enactment into regional edicts, by the BARMM parliament, of the BLEC and a separate but related measure, the region’s proposed Magna Carta for Informal Economy.

Representatives from the International Labour Organization, an agency of the United Nations, also participated in last week’s two-day Bangsamoro regional summit here.

Khalid Hassan, ILO’s country director in the Philippines, then spoke about the need for prevention of child labor, a serious problem besetting many countries.

Jennylyn Aguinaldo, an ILO project manager, and senior officials of the Ministry of Labor and Employment-BARMM were also present in the labor summit.

The ILO and the MOLE-BARMM together launched after the summit a training manual on child labor, a compilation of laws, policies and programs intended to address the issue.

The manual was produced with the support of the Japanese government.

Participants to last week’s regional labor summit here told reporters they shall help push forward the joint anti-child labor efforts of the MOLE-BARMM government and the ILO.

The ILO and MOLE-BARMM shall cooperate in activating a pool of “focal persons” who shall oversee various programs meant to end for good child labor in the Bangsamoro region.